


Close encounters

by Allowisp, thecrownofthereveur



Series: Under Gotham's rainy sky [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:57:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3789064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allowisp/pseuds/Allowisp, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecrownofthereveur/pseuds/thecrownofthereveur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It began as something that neither of them, Oswald or Jim, wanted to talk about. They both had, as they said, busy lives. And neither of them, after the adrenaline of the moment passed, wanted to think deeply about their own actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close encounters

**Author's Note:**

> Finally an update! After nearly two months of waiting, you readers have patience. Seriously, I'll try to get the next one done faster.
> 
> Thank you so much to Allowisp for correcting the grammar part, and for his advices with the story. I really appreciate it!

Jim wasn’t even that surprised when he found Barbara’s letter.

He hadn’t been wanting this to happen so abruptly, but during all these past weeks, something in the back of his mind had been expecting it.

It was a goodbye. A long one with a lot of explanations. An apology. A half promise of coming back. But a goodbye.

Jim was alone again. The apartment was as quiet as it had never been. Not peaceful quietness. A confusing one. In all the places, all the corners, little fragments of Barbara came back from the past constantly, making him angry, unhappy, or just gloomy.  This place, in which they had lived, now represented all their love, all their fights, all their misunderstandings. All their ends. So during the next few days Jim didn’t come back to his place, nor to Barbara’s either. He slept in the station, mostly. He drank a beer or two with Harvey after a tough shift. He called Alfred Pennyworth to check on Selina occasionally. Sometimes he just wandered in the street for hours just to be doing something, to not get lost between the space of his job and the other things that didn’t fill his life anymore.

He would get over this, eventually, he knew.This boredom, this lack of motivation. It wasn’t sadness after all, what overcame him after Barbara left. It wasn’t like the first time in which he just couldn’t get rid of Barbara’s memories, in which he couldn’t stop thinking about her, her beauty, her smiles, her little gestures. It wasn’t that painful anymore. It was just strange to come home every day when there was no one there waiting. No one waiting for him.

***

That day Jim entered the station after a long night walking in the street, just to sit at his desk and look around him. The whole squad was working. Harvey sat at his desk reading the paper with his morning coffee in hand. Nygma was walking around towards Kristen Kringle’s office, as usual. Nothing had changed since the last time, apparently. He had a new case in his file’s pile, some new information about those cold cases he had been investigating. All fine. But not fine at all.

Jim clenched his hand around his phone, running the other one through his hair.

He had Barbara’s phone in his contacts list. He wondered, briefly, if he should try to call her. But he got rid of the thought very quickly. There was no point in keeping pushing after that message he had left her some nights ago. He had to wait now, he supposed. And he was about to put the phone back in his pocket to start working, when he noticed one number in his contacts list. One he had being trying to ignore the past two weeks, even if he never got the impulse of erasing it.

Oswald’s number.

He had it. He had forgotten. Oswald had given it to him in a note the day Jim went to the restaurant to return his gift. Just in case something happened, he had told him. Jim didn’t know if this was the real reason. But he thought, suddenly, that it really wasn’t a good idea to keep Oswald’s number in his phone like that. The reputation he had been building so far could quickly fall apart in seconds, if someone found it. He didn’t want people to think he had connections with the mob, that he was a fraud and that he was as dirty as the rest of the cops in the station.

Jim sighed.

Nothing about that was the real problem. Surely he could say Oswald was his snitch (he had proposed it to him more than once, for the record). His real concern was that someone could suspect or _get to know_ something about his strange relationship with Oswald Cobblepot. That, surely, could be his end.

Jim hadn’t seen Oswald since the night in the alley. He was nervous, somehow. He could call, if he wanted to. He could tell Oswald this whole thing had been a mistake, _please keep it quiet_ he could say, _no one can find out._ But for some reason, Jim couldn’t find the strength to do so. He didn’t want to think right now. Not about Oswald or Barbara. He was tired. He was exhausted. But he didn’t want to sleep; he didn’t want to lie in bed, looking at the closed window, waiting for the reverie to close his eyes. He just wanted to _rest_.

Jim’s office phone beeped suddenly. He felt like he could have crushed it just moved by rage. But instead he took the call and said, ‘Hello?’ When his response was Alfred Pennyworth’s agitated voice, talking to him about Bruce and Selina being in danger, Jim’s first reaction was to stand up and say, ‘I’m on my way’ and immediately head towards the exit of the station.

***

Oswald left Don Falcone’s office feeling the dark eyes of Victor Zsasz following him around. It gave him a small shiver; he leaned on his umbrella slightly and walked towards the elevator. He could hear Zsasz’s slow steps behind him. The man still terrified him even after working in secret for Falcone for months, watching him at least once at week. There was something in his eyes, in the way he moved that Oswald just didn’t like, didn’t trust. So when Victor stood up at his side, waiting casually for the elevator with him, Oswald gripped his umbrella tighter than usual.

What could this man want from him?

When the elevator’s doors opened, Oswald stepped aside smiling and said, ‘Please, come in.’

Victor Zsasz didn’t even blink. He smiled back with his thin lips and entered without a word. Oswald followed him soon after, feeling his leg heavier. He hadn’t been kidding when he warned Jim to be careful if he met with this man. People said things about him. And not just minor, disposable criminals; no, people with enough money to have thirty people protecting them in highly secured houses. People who had power, like Fish, feared him, talked about sadistic methods, strange experiments the man used to run. Oswald paled at the idea of this man chasing Jim again, the things he could to him. When the doors went closed, Oswald observed how the buttons signaling the floors turned on one by one until they were at the ground floor. Victor’s eyes still watching him weren’t helping.

Oswald tried to get out then. Whatever reason this man had to follow him (he was pretty sure it wasn’t a coincidence that Victor was in this particular elevator with him, after his talk with Falcone about the stolen money), he didn’t want to know. He was still thinking about the infiltrator -Fish’s infiltrator he reminded himself- and how he could get to him or her faster than Falcone’s men. He couldn’t keep coming to Falcone’s office like that; Maroni was starting to suspect. Oswald hadn’t seen Jim in almost two weeks, and he was furious, he didn’t knew why but he was, and he didn’t want to deal with Victor Zsasz right now.

‘Mr. Cobblepot,’ Victor’s voice said, making Oswald stop, clenching his teeth, hands, eyes. ‘I think this would be a good moment for you to contact your friend, Detective Gordon.’

Oswald froze immediately.

‘What the fuck does that mean?’ he said, turning around, not wanting to repress his language today. His mother had always warned him about swearing or cursing, but if this was a threat, if Zsasz knew something, Oswald wasn't going to pretend at being gentle.

‘Some hours ago Detective Gordon was discharged, Mr. Cobblepot,’ Victor said, and Oswald didn’t knew why he used this particular mocking tone when saying _Cobblepot._ ‘I just thought you would want to know.’

Oswald just stood there with one foot in the elevator and the other one on the ground floor. ‘ _Discharged?_ ’ he asked, confused. What the hell had Jim done this time?

***

The same night Jim talked with the Mayor he took his things from his desk and put them in a box to leave. He wasn’t going to delay the inevitable leaving it for tomorrow, or the next week. He wanted to end it as quickly as possible. And so he did. Harvey met him in the darkness of the station, when he had almost finished. The conversation went, of course, at why he was doing this, why he didn’t just quit. Jim smiled; he wasn’t going to give up in this war against Falcone and his little rats. He preferred to be a simple guard in Arkham Asylum before he’d quit. He preferred to accept this humiliation before admitting that defeat. He couldn’t. So Harvey kept silent, helped him with the heavier items, and went away.

Jim was carrying the last box towards his car in the parking lot; he would have to say goodbye to his and Harvey’s police car. Now it would be just Harvey’s. Or maybe not. Maybe he would get a new partner sooner than Jim was expecting. He didn’t know for certain.

Jim put the box in the truck with the other ones and closed the door, heading to the driver’s seat. When he took the wheel, he exhaled, laying his back against the seat and closing his eyes. He wanted a beer, maybe more. He didn’t want to go home. But he neither had the strength to go to the nearest bar and intoxicate himself as much as he could all alone, nor to go for Harvey and do it with company. He was sick. Sick of everything.

Jim was preparing himself to drive home, open a beer if he still had any, and go to sleep, when his phone started to vibrate with a new message. He frowned. It could be Harvey, or someone from work. Maybe Barbara. No. Not Barbara. Jim unlocked the phone, surprised. It was a text from Oswald.

_Are you awake, Detective?_

_—_ it said.

Jim, a bit perplexed, managed to respond with a simple:

_Yes, why?_

And he waited for the answer expecting it to be quick. After some minutes, his phone vibrated again.

_A little bird told me about your discharge. I just wanted to check on you, really._

Check on him? Jim growled. He had heard that before.

 _And?—_ he responded.

The next text wasn’t quick either. And Jim for some reason wondered if Oswald was busy while writing him, or if he was just hesitating to respond.

_I think a man in your state could be in need of some drinks, and I happen to have a very nice bottle of whiskey in my hands._

Jim blinked, perplexed again. Whiskey. He had told Oswald he liked it that day in the alley. This was an invitation. He didn’t know how to feel about that. He still didn’t want to go home. He could say yes. He should decline. _It wasn’t a good idea._

But nothing had to happen if they meet for a short talk, he thought. He wanted more than a few drinks. He wanted to be with someone. Not being alone. Jim knew he was playing with fire. Truth was he wanted something to happen, something to end with this strange suffering from these last days, weeks, or months.To do it looking for relief or for revenge, just to blow off steam or out of spite. He wasn’t a detective anymore; he didn’t have any of the responsibilities he had before. And although he wanted to recover them, would it really be so bad for him, not working anymore in the station, to meet with Oswald?

He looked at the phone and waited, acting like he hadn’t already made the decision. He closed his eyes before sending the text, feeling suddenly like an idiot. And not so, at the same time.

_Where?_

—he wrote, and waited patiently for the answer.

***

Jim would regret this in a very short time. He would think about how stupid he was, how weak, how irresponsible. Or so he imagined while heading to the address Oswald had send him, checking the restaurants' names carefully, looking for the right one. He would find out, hours later, that he wouldn’t even have the time to regret his actions.

Oswald and he entered Jim’s apartment kissing fiercely, throwing everything in their path to the floor. They had kept their distance all the way to Jim’s apartment, not talking too much, keeping their attention on the car’s window or on the road, not meeting the other one’s eyes. They had left the restaurant an hour ago. They had ordered some light food, hadn’t touched it at all, disappeared for the doorway at the small touch of their knees pressed together, their hands starting to clench in anticipation. They almost fell to the floor while walking in the hallway towards Jim’s bedroom, too busy touching sides, backs or tights. When they entered, the first thing Jim did was to push Oswald towards the bed with one of his hands, making him sit. Oswald’s hair was a mess(more than normal), his lips were slightly red, his eyes too wide. Jim was doing this out of spite, he knew. And not so, at the same time. He was angry, like the first time this had happened, angry at everything, consumed by it, angry with this city that was trying to devour him part by part. No police officer could blame him. They had all done worse. They all had their dirty secrets. They all had pulled the trigger unfairly at least one time. Jim wasn’t doing it just out of spite, he was doing it for the sensation of breaking all the rules people had imposed on him, this sensation of not caring.

So he watched Oswald seated in his bed, all disarmed, just waiting, with a bulge in his pants. Jim undid his tie thinking about how good it would feel to kiss Oswald right now, to run his nose across his neck, to clench his hands in the flesh of his sides and then go fast, not stopping, not thinking, screaming, biting. He didn’t. He went blank just for a moment and then, licking his dried lips, Jim didn’t recognize his voice while saying, ‘ _take off your pants_ ,’ and walking towards the bed undoing his belt, ready to get burned, to draw quickly, to never return again.

***

Now, an hour later, neither of them was asleep. It was almost midnight. And after the rush of blood in his veins, the adrenaline had disappeared, and Jim felt awkward, voiceless. He suspected Oswald felt the same, all silent, not cheerful like always when Jim was around. So Jim, lying down on his back, and Oswald, seated in the bed, didn’t exchange words or air. Just displeasing quietness.

‘Jim…,’ Oswald’s voice said, after a while of silence, not facing him, ‘should I leave?’

Jim didn’t say anything at first, pretending to be too sleepy to answer.

‘Why?’ he asked, rubbing his face with his hand.

‘Because I believe that you don’t want me here,’ Oswald said, as though that didn’t mean anything important. ‘And that you want me to leave.’

Jim exhaled, feeling lost. He looked at Oswald’s skinny figure, the bones of his hips, his shoulders and stomach. Then looked at the watch. The hour. The dark of the night behind his window. He thought about this tightness in his belly that hadn’t disappeared, wouldn’t disappear, not since that day in front of the river (Oswald limping towards the edge, grey clouds, a gun been fired), and about the first impressions that this man had given him. A skinny, funny guy in an alley with Fish Money’s gang, dressed in a cheap suit. Oswald’s suits were no longer cheap. His hair was a bit longer now. Despite that, he seemed the same man. And Jim wondered why now, after all the things that had happened lately between them, he found Oswald different, not funny or pathetic. Just like Oswald, who he found sweet on occasions, who was smart but naïve, who at times seemed a kid despite the cruel things he had done, like if some part of him had never grown up. Oswald who kept this tightness in his belly by just existing, by just talking or not talking at all, by just being near Jim.

 ‘No,’ Jim said finally, almost whispering, ‘No, Oswald, you don’t have to go anywhere…’

Oswald didn’t respond, he didn’t move from the sheets or look at him. Jim didn’t either. They both sank into the silence, distracted, not knowing what else to add or what else to say.

***

It began as something that neither of them, Oswald or Jim, wanted to talk about.  They didn’t discuss it, not the first time, nor the times following. They tried, as much as possible, to not be so obvious, to keep it discreet. No one had to know, after all. No one could. So when they met, they got laid quickly or not, talked a bit afterwards, then left. They both had, as they said, busy lives. And neither of them, after the adrenaline of the moment passed, wanted to think deeply about their own actions.

So they left it like that, simple, harmless close encounters in Jim’s place, in Jim’s car, in motel rooms in occasions, in small, quiet places in which they couldn’t be found. But no matter where they met, or what they did, how sure they were of no one following, Jim couldn’t get rid of this strange feeling in the top of his stomach whenever he was about to see Oswald, or whenever he was about to leave him. Like if something wasn’t right, like if something was missing.

***

Oswald had been reckless lately. _Reckless._ It was the only possible word capable of describing his behavior. A month ago he had looked at himself in a bathroom’s mirror, promising himself to give this an end. He hadn’t even been able to keep that promise for an hour. This plan of his was getting out of control. Oswald knew this. He had thought about it a million times during the last three weeks. If he had thought he could end this before, he knew now that he couldn’t. He had come to a conclusion, the only one he could: he wasn’t going to resist.

He didn’t quite know what he was having with Detective Gordon right now. He wondered if he was allowed to call it a relationship. They were, at least physically, a lot closer than before. They met now, (before or after Jim’s shift) without that distress, uncertainty that had characterized their first encounters. They talked now, even just a bit, usually drowsy in Jim’s bed after having sex. They talked about Jim’s job (never Oswald’s, that was like an unsaid rule), about the city, about casual things. They didn’t kiss when they say goodbye, nor hug each other nor hold hands. It was okay at some point. At the beginning Oswald didn’t think it would bother him. It did now. His feelings towards Jim Gordon weren’t decreasing. He found himself still all excited before their meetings, about Jim’s looks or casual touches. He was starting to feel completely hypnotized by them. And that was giving too much, considering how little Jim was willing to give him. He wasn't a cop anymore; Oswald couldn't use him to get into GCPD information like he had wanted in the past. This was a severe complication in Oswald’s initial strategy. He needed someone in the GCPD, every powerful man in Gotham had one. He was starting to become _careless_.

Victor Zsasz had found out. Oswald didn’t know how, didn’t know why, but he had found out. It was the only thing that could explain why he had told him about Jim’s discharge that day in the elevator. And if Zsasz knew, Oswald didn’t know who else could. That was a big risk. He could be in danger. _Jim_ could be in danger.

Oswald’s eyes darkened slightly. If Zsasz, or someone else, tried to put a finger in Jim Gordon, Oswald was willing to stick a knife in that someone else’s throat just to watch him bleed to death in the floor. He decided that.

But right now he couldn’t think about it. He was walking in the street, for the first time in some time without his thugs. He knew who Mooney’s infiltrator was, and he was currently heading towards her apartment. He hadn’t been so surprised to find out she was a woman. (As his mother used to say, women tend to be pretty, but poisonous). Nor that she was practically living with Don Falcone, cleaning his house and feeding him. Oswald smiled secretly. This was indeed, a good card to keep in his sleeve for the moment.

***

Arkham Asylum was a very old building. It had been abandoned during almost all Jim’s childhood. Sometimes, playing with his friends, they got near the building, and when it was dark at night, it scared them. The old structure (possibly constructed around the 40’s) had shadows everywhere, old corners with dust, strange passages between the buildings. It hadn’t changed much, even if it was no longer abandoned. The rooms and the hallways were still dark, there was a lot of dust still too. Jim’s shifts were usually at night. They started near six o’clock in the afternoon, and ended in some moment between twelve at night and one in the morning. It was normal for him to be very lonely during his shifts. Say hi to the other guard in the entry, walk in front of the patients’ rooms, talk with the nurses from the night’s shifts. From time to time he was surprised during his watch by sudden screams in the dark from some patient in the rooms, or by the noises of struggles, or from patients that didn’t want to go to bed already. Jim’s job was to keep them controlled; to, with the help of the nurses, put them back to bed and make them sleep. Besides that, he was very bored. He was a guard, but more than keeping intruders out of the place, he kept the inmates inside. During his first month working there, two times he got bites from angered patients, three times he got punched in the face or the stomach, and one time was attacked with a knife.

Jim became embittered with his job, didn’t talk a lot, made complains about the state of the institution (the lack of good doctors, the older parts of the place not being fixed, the extreme amount of patients that were interned to never came out of the place again). Even so, by the third week he was already accustomed to the whole situation. He slept from two to ten of the morning, ate toast or cereal for breakfast, went for a walk, met for lunch with the few friends he still had, read the papers, got depressed by them, and went back to work. He called Oswald at least once a week to meet. At times it made him happy, calmed him from all the things that were happening in his life.

‘You are not a psychos’ guard, James,’ Oswald told him one night, lying on the couch of his apartment ( _James_ , at the beginning Jim had linked this name in Oswald’s mouth to when they were having sex, now apparently he used it too for strange, maybe intimate moments in which he wanted to make a very clear statement, one Jim would hear. He had the impression that if this was going to continue, with time Oswald would get accustomed to James and would never call him Jim again at all). _‘_ You are a detective, a great one… _,’_ Oswald had said after, ‘and a _good man_ too…’

A good man, he said, with that rough, dry voice he used sometimes. Jim laughed; he didn’t know if he was that still. But from the way Oswald was looking at him, he felt like he shouldn’t have laughed at all. This serious look in his face. Clear eyes meeting his. Pale skin. Long fingers on his cheek. What was happening, he asked himself, what had really been happening during all these months?

Jim’s phone beeped then. It was on vibration, like usual when Jim meet with Oswald, on the counter beside the couch. They looked at each other. It was almost 3 am; they met just before Jim’s shift ended. Who was calling Jim at three in the morning at Monday?

Oswald raised his arm (his pale, long arm) to take the phone from the counter. Jim saw the surprise in the corners of his eyes, how his face, his lips tensed slightly. Was he angry? He seemed so.

Oswald didn’t said anything, he just handed the phone to Jim.

It was Barbara calling, Jim realized, looking at the screen. And it hit him like a punch in the gut. Why was she calling at this hour, after almost two and a half months of silence?

Oswald was seated now on the couch, not as relaxed as before, his thin body totally naked aside from his underwear. His bad leg was slightly moving, like with nerves. Jim let his back fall against the cushions, looking at the screen, Barbara’s name, looking at Oswald. _You are a good man._

Jim hung up the phone and was surprised to find out that it hadn’t been as difficult as he had thought. He really tried to not think too deeply about this. It was past midnight after all, and no one could blame him for been asleep at this hour after a day of work. Jim put it on the counter again, slowly, and then turned around to Oswald again. He was looking at him from the couch, his lips mildly opened, puzzled.

***

After a month working at Arkham Asylum Jim met with Harvey in their accustomed coffee shop. The one in where they met before his morning’s shift, drank some coffee, ate some eggs with toast or a sandwich. It was strange at some point, and at the same time it wasn’t. When Harvey saw him entering the place, the first thing he did was to stand up and say, ‘Jimbo! Finally, I was getting old sitting here!’ with this strange smile in his face, showing all his teeth. Jim laughed. ‘What’s that you’re wearing?’ Harvey said as they seated themselves, pointing at the black jeans and the button shirt Jim had on. ‘Do you use that when you’re not at work? Seriously, it’s just like your uniform without the suit jacket and the badge.’

Jim gave him a blank look. Harvey didn’t change, apparently. He was wearing his badge, so Jim thought that he was probably heading towards a shift, or coming from one. Maybe he had just being drinking all night, (that wouldn’t have surprised Jim), and was here now with just a small headache, his stomach ready for a strong coffee. Harvey didn’t have a new partner, he found out. He didn’t know if it was because he had asked the Captain or if it was just that people didn’t gave a police officer a new partner until he had forgotten the last one. How pious. They sat and drank coffee with fried eggs and toast. Harvey talked about the station, a few cases he’d had. _‘Seriously_ , Jim.Things are no longer funny with Nygma bothering me at every corner,’ he had said. And Jim supposed it was his way of saying, things aren’t the same without you. He didn’t talk about Arkham, didn’t want to. Instead he tried to have fun, to relax. And so he did, until Harvey went to one point he had really wanted to avoid.

‘So, what happens with Barbara?’ Harvey asked, and he must have known that this wasn’t such nice subject, because his tone changed drastically. ‘Did she come back? Are you…, together again?’

‘No…,’ Jim responded, slowly, ‘No, we aren’t and I don’t think we are going to…’

‘Oh…,’ Harvey said, wrinkling his forehead. ‘There’s no one then?’

Jim put his lips in a tight line, fixing his eyes on his cup of coffee at the memory of the serious look in Oswald’s face, his clear eyes shining in a dirty alley with his hands grabbing Jim’s collar,his face the first time Jim kissed him, his strange laughter, his perfectly arranged suit, his naked body sleeping in Jim’s bed, his eyes looking at him puzzled after hanging up the phone, his voice saying (echo) _you are a good man, you are a good man, you are a good man_.

‘No,’ Jim said then, ‘There’s no one…’—knowing he wasn’t speaking the truth at all.


End file.
